Religiosity Measure

Abstract

The Religiosity Measure is an eight-item, multiple-choice instrument developed to assess an individual’s general religious orientation, independent of specific denominational affiliation. It operationalizes Glock’s (1959) four dimensions of religiosity: ritual, consequential, ideological (theological), and experiential. The scale uses two items per dimension, forming four subscales. Items are generally scored from 0 (least religiosity) to 4 (greatest religiosity), yielding a maximum possible total score of 32. The instrument is designed to evaluate the integration of religious belief into the respondent’s daily, secular life and their participation in ritual practices.

Keywords

Religiosity, Glock’s dimensions, Ritual, Experiential, Consequential, Ideological, Psychological measurement, Survey, Adolescent psychology, Religious orientation

Authors

Rohrbaugh, J., Jessor, R.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Religiosity Measure is to quantify the extent of an individual’s religious involvement, focusing both on behavioral practices and cognitive orientation toward a transcendent reality. The developers sought to evaluate the influence of religion on the respondent’s daily, secular life, and their participation in ritual practices such as prayer and attendance at services.

A key design goal was ensuring the measure’s applicability to religiosity in general. The instrument is intended to be non-denominational, meaning it does not presuppose or require adherence to any particular religious affiliation or specific denominational creed, thereby allowing for broad applicability across diverse populations.

Construct

The scale measures the construct of Religiosity by breaking it down into four distinct, yet related, dimensions originally proposed by Charles Glock (1959). Each dimension is assessed using two specific items:

• Ritual Religiosity: Focuses on behavioral participation, such as attending religious services and engaging in prayer or religious meditation.
• Consequential Religiosity: Measures the impact of religious belief on practical, daily decisions, including seeking religious advice for personal problems and the influence of religion on choosing actions and time allocation.
• Ideological (Theological) Religiosity: Assesses cognitive orientation and belief structures, specifically concerning the existence of God and beliefs regarding life after death (immortality). These items typically contain the verb “believe.”
• Experiential Religiosity: Captures subjective feelings related to faith, such as experiencing religious reverence or devotion, and the amount of comfort and security derived from religion. These items are oriented towards “feelings.”

The structure of the questionnaire, combining these four dimensions into a single score, supports the assessment of general religious commitment. Items are designed to be randomly ordered, and some are reverse-worded, to minimize systematic response bias.

Validity

The instrument demonstrates strong evidence of construct validity, supported by findings consistent with existing research in the field. Specifically, females consistently reported significantly higher religiosity scores than males, and high school-age students scored higher than their college-age counterparts.

Furthermore, concurrent validity was established through correlation with a 10-point linear rating scale where subjects rated their overall religiosity. The correlation coefficients were notably high across all student groups: college males (r = 0.78), college females (r = 0.81), high school males (r = 0.83), and high school females (r = 0.84). Strong internal validity was indicated by the four subscales, which had an overall average correlation matrix coefficient value of 0.69 across the four student groups. A final analysis confirmed discriminant validity, showing that the instrument effectively assesses the personal religious orientation of the individual and is not merely measuring their identification with an external religious network or social structure.

Reliability

The Religiosity Measure exhibited high internal consistency. The Cronbach coefficient alphas calculated for the instrument were consistently over 0.90, indicating a high degree of reliability across the scale items. The high alpha value suggests that the items within the scale are closely related as a group.

Factor Analysis

Based on psychometric analysis reported by the authors, the measure was determined to be unidimensional and homogeneous, suggesting that the four subscales contribute effectively to a single, overarching score of general religiosity. This homogeneity was further supported by an average of 0.55 for Homogeneity Ratios (Scott, 1960). This finding implies that while the scale captures distinct dimensions of religious experience, they converge meaningfully into one measurable construct.

Instrument

Test Type: Psychological Scale / Multiple-Choice Questionnaire

Format: Eight items (Seven multiple-choice, one fill-in-the-blank). Each multiple-choice item is typically scored from 0 to 4, except for the attendance question which is categorized based on meaningful breaks in the response distribution. The maximum possible score is 32.

Language Available: English (Inferred)

Population Group: Adolescents and Young Adults

Age Group: High School (Junior and Senior) and College Freshman

Population Details: The initial standardization sample included 949 high school students and 276 college students, stratified by sex and grade level, drawn from schools and universities in the Rocky Mountain region. The college sample was monitored longitudinally.

Test Methodology: Self-report questionnaire. The instrument is short and easy to administer, requiring a reading competency level in the high school range.

Keywords

Psychometrics, Internal consistency, Cronbach’s alpha, Unidimensionality, Construct validity, Discriminant validity, Youth religiosity

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source material)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Not provided in source material)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Not provided in source material)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1975 (Based on original publication by Rohrbaugh & Jessor).

Permissions and Fees: Information regarding current commercial permissions or associated fees is not provided in the source material. Researchers should consult the original authors or publishing journal for usage rights.

Reference’s

Rohrbaugh, J., & Jessor, R. (1975). Religiosity in youth: A personal control against deviant behavior. Journal of Personality, 43, 136-155.

Glock, C. (1959). The religious revival in America? In J. Zahn (Ed.) Religion and the face of America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Scott, W. A. (1960). Measures of test homogeneity. Educational and Psychological Measurements, 20, 75/-757.

Demaria, T., & Kassinove, H. (1988). Predicting guilt from irrational beliefs, religious affiliation and religiosity. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. 6(4), 259-272.

Friedberg, B. A., & Friedberg, R. D. ( 1985). Locus of control and religiosity in college students. Psychological Reports, 56, 757-758.

Heintzelman, H. E. (1976). Relationship between religious orthodoxy and three personality variables. Psychological Reports, 38, 756-758.

Items of the RELIGIOSITY MEASURE

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Instructions: The following questionnaire consists of seven multiple-choice items with one fill-in-the-blank item. Please answer the following questions by circling the appropriate letter for the multiple-choice items and providing the most accurate number for the fill-in-the-blank question.

Ritual Religiosity

1. How many times have you attended religious services during the past year?       times.
2. Which of the following best describes your practice of prayer or religious meditation?
   1. Prayer is a regular part of my daily life.
   2. I usually pray in times of stress or need but rarely at any other time.
   3. I pray only during formal ceremonies.
   4. I never pray.

      Consequential Religiosity

3. When you have a serious personal problem, how often do you take religious advice or teaching into consideration?
   1. Almost always
   2. Usually
   3. Sometimes
   4. Never
4. How much influence would you say that religion has on the way that you choose to act and the way that you choose to spend your time each day?
   1. No influence
   2. A small influence
   3. Some influence
   4. A fair amount of influence
   5. A large influence

      Theological Religiosity

5. Which of the following statements comes closest to your belief about God?
   1. I am sure that God really exists and that He is active in my life.
   2. Although I sometimes question His existence, I do believe in God and believe He knows of me as a person.
   3. I don’t know if there is a personal God, but I do believe in a higher power of some kind.
   4. I don’t know if there is a personal God or a higher power of some kind, and I don’t know if I ever will.
   5. I don’t believe in a personal God or in a higher power.
6. Which one of the following statements comes closest to your belief about life after death (immortality)?
   1. I believe in a personal life after death, a soul existing as a specific individual spirit.
   2. I believe in a soul existing after death as a part of a universal spirit.
   3. I believe in a life after death of some kind, but I really don’t know what it would be like.
   4. I don’t know whether there is any kind of life after death, and I don’t know if I will ever know.
   5. I don’t believe in any kind of life after death.

      Experiential Religiosity

7. During the past year, how often have you experienced a feeling of religious reverence or devotion?
   1. Almost daily
   2. Frequently
   3. Sometimes
   4. Rarely
   5. Never
8. Do you agree with the following statement? “Religion gives me a great amount of comfort and security in life.”
   1. Strongly disagree
   2. Disagree
   3. Uncertain
   4. Agree
   5. Strongly Agree